1999 2.5 DhSE P38 window switch pack

Phew! After a good day of taking this to bits to see whether it can be repaired, result! With a scalpel & tweezers it can be done as long as the windows were working albeit intermittently, knowing that the chip hasn't or any other of electronics has gone. (As my sunroof was still working correctly)
What I found that there's two small triangular tinned contacts in there (one for up and one for down that had tarnished on one of the corners, they are covered with a thin layer of clear tape, which you can carefully cut away with the scalpel, remove the contact with the tweezers, I then very lightly cleaned the contact with some contact emery cloth, (without removing any of the tinning) and rotated the contact 1 turn (using the less used part of the contact area) reassembled using a tiny amount of contact lubricant, you could at this point use some clear sticky tape to put back over them, (good luck with that) reassemble and plugged it back in and they're working better than ever (I've owned the car for the last 5 years)
Has anyone else tried this?

Well done that man.

Yes, I do a repair service on them and did a writeup on the window button fixes a little while ago on Rangerovers.net for any of the DIY'ers out there who wanted to give it a go..

http://www.rangerovers.net/forum/7-...nfo-repairing-window-switchpack-switches.html

I can also repair ones which have failed completely aswell - but they can be a bit trickier to fault-find where the issue lies - but I haven't had one I can't fix yet

Good on you for doing it though - most people just bin them when they stop working - I like to at least try fixing something before condemning it to the trash pile!!

Marty

I'll bear that in mind for when the inevitable happens.

martyuk said:

Yes, I do a repair service on them and did a writeup on the window button fixes a little while ago on Rangerovers.net for any of the DIY'ers out there who wanted to give it a go..

http://www.rangerovers.net/forum/7-...nfo-repairing-window-switchpack-switches.html

I can also repair ones which have failed completely aswell - but they can be a bit trickier to fault-find where the issue lies - but I haven't had one I can't fix yet

Good on you for doing it though - most people just bin them when they stop working - I like to at least try fixing something before condemning it to the trash pile!!

Marty

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Me too, that's a great link Marty, I should have looked at it first!

I have a spare faulty one in my garage, from memory just one window switch didn't work when I replaced it.

$tumpy said:

Me too, that's a great link Marty, I should have looked at it first!

Click to expand...

When I wrote that, I didn't even know if it was going to work, but I figured it was worth a shot, given that people had said they had some success occasionally at getting them working with spraying in contact cleaner and all that. My original idea was to replace the metal pads with mini surface mount switches (which I might still look into at some point) but after trying the repair on the current ones, I haven't bothered yet!

Fixing the ones where they have completely failed is a bit more of a pain. I basically drew myself a circuit diagram for the whole switchpack board, since there isn't one in public existance. I could then trace all the tracks and components, to determine if the fault was in the main chip on there, and hence beyond repair as they are specialised microcontrollers which are programmed for an individual task. (and even if you could get new chips, there would be no way of getting the code to program it with!).

Luckily, on all of the ones I have repaired where it was completely dead to start with, none of them have had a fault with that main chip. The problems have all been elsewhere on the board, and since everything else isn't as specialised or programmed specifically, then they can generally be repaired sucessfully

SpanishTony said:

I have a spare faulty one in my garage, from memory just one window switch didn't work when I replaced it.

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If you don't want it, then I would be happy to work something out with you to buy it as spares/repair as I have a limited number of them (I try to do them on exchange to keep downtime a minimum for owners). Even though I add a core charge on that I refund when the faulty one is sent back for repair, at least half of the time I don't get the old one returned - which doesn't make it worth my while doing if I don't have faulty ones to fix!!

Drop me a PM and we can go from there if you're happy to sell the faulty one...

Marty

Hi Marty
Do you fix the switch packs? Mine has just failed (again) don't know weather to buy another one or get this one fixed
Bernie

Hi Bernie,

Yes, I repair switch packs. I usually have a few of them repaired and in stock on the shelf to sell on exchange for the faulty one back. I think I have one of the sunroof variety and one non-sunroof left at the moment, and have another 4 on the bench to repair, and probably another 5 or 6 that I'm waiting to be returned...

If you want a link to my website or eBay where I list them up then let me know and I will drop you a message.

Kind Regards,
Martin